1. Field of the Invention
The application relates generally to assistive devices for the visually impaired and more specifically to compact assistive reading devices
2. Description of Related Art
Technology has been used to aid the visually impaired perform tasks that many sighted people take for granted. One such approach has been to use a camera to form images of documents or other items. A computer or other device receives the output of the camera and enlarges it for display. Such magnification-based systems are useful only for partially-sighted users.
Assistive devices have also been developed for users who cannot read or extract useful from a display, even if substantially magnified. Such systems have used audio output, such as speech to text converters, to convert items containing text to a form that can be perceived by a visually impaired user. Such converters may be used to enable the visually impaired to access information in books or other documents containing text.
One type of document is currency. In many countries, particularly the United States, all bills of currency are essentially the same size, regardless of denomination. As a result, without an assistive device that can read information printed on a bill, a visually impaired person would be unable to determine the denomination of the bill. Accordingly, currency readers that can recognize and produce a non-visual output indicating a denomination of a bill are known.